The 3 Best Kids Sleeping Bags of 2025
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The Little Red is backcountry-ready for preschoolers. There’s a sleeping-pad pocket on the back of the bag, for added warmth and comfort; you do have to supply your own pad, though.
For kids who are older than about kindergarten age, the Wolverine is likely a better fit — it works for those up to about 4-foot-8.
If your family does a lot of cold-weather camping, it could be worth it to get one of these Big Agnes bags for your kid. They both stand out for their built-in sleeping-pad sleeves, which will keep your kid on the pad — and thus warmer and more comfortable — all night long.
Big Agnes makes kid bags in three sizes, all rated to 20 ˚F. The Little Red is made for kids up to 4-feet tall. The nearly identical Wolverine is for kids up to about 4-foot-8 (though, as we found with the REI Co-op Kindercone 25, this bag can fit kids a bit taller than that). And the adjustable Torchlight is intended for those up to 5-foot-4.
If we were buying a Big Agnes bag for a 2- or 3-year-old, we’d get the Little Red, assuming the kid would get at least three years of use out of it. For any child older than that, we’d likely go straight to the Wolverine (unless there’s a younger sibling who will also need a little sleeping bag in the future, in which case it may be more practical to get a Little Red for a kindergarten-age kid). A Boulder, Colorado, dad we know bought a Big Agnes bag for his son when he was just 1. “In tents, in sub-freezing temps, he’s cozy and never wakes up,” the dad wrote to us, praising the sleeping bag’s stay-put pad system.
They create a warmer setup. Big Agnes built its reputation on high-quality sleeping bags with built-in sleeping-pad sleeves that — when stuffed with a sleeping pad you buy separately — eliminate the need for insulation in the bottom of the bag.
At first, we thought the system seemed a bit much for little kids. But a couple of mid-30s February nights in Joshua Tree convinced us of the Little Red’s superiority for cold-weather camping. At the time, we were putting our 5-year-old’s sleeping bag on an old Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad left over from our backpacking days. He’d typically roll off of it in the middle of the night — not such a big deal when it’s not too cold out. But on truly chilly nights, it was nice to know that his insulating pad was going to securely stay under his little, 37-pound body, significantly reducing the chance he’d wake up wedged between air mattresses — cold, confused, and begging to climb into bed with Mom and Dad. The Big Agnes system solved a problem that had never occurred to us needed solving.
But it may require purchasing a new sleeping pad as well. Any 20-inch-wide camping pad that’s less than about 4¼ inches thick will slot into the Big Agnes bags. Therm-a-Rest’s Z Lite Sol, the budget pick in our guide to the best sleeping pads, will fit in its regular or small version, and it’s a great choice for kids since it’s close to indestructible. Nemo Equipment makes a short version of its Switchback pad, and that’s another option, as is this self-inflating kid-size pad from REI.
It’s lighter and packs down smaller. All of the Big Agnes kids bags have a polyester ripstop shell with water-repellent coating, and they use a proprietary synthetic fill. They pack down smaller than the REI bags do, making them a good option for first backpacking trips. The Wolverine bag weighs 2 pounds 4 ounces; that’s notably lighter than the similarly sized Kindercone 25, which weighs 3 pounds 3 ounces.
It’s more expensive, though. Some parents may choose to reserve pricey gear like this for camping only, and they instead buy a cheaper bag for sleepovers, fort-building, and the like. And there’s no doubt that your kid risks looking like a pint-size gear geek if she packs two tiny stuff sacks (one for the sleeping bag, one for the pad) for a birthday sleepover where everyone else is cuddling up with Elsa and Anna sleeping bags. Then again, she may be the only one to get a good night’s rest.
The Big Agnes bags have a discretionary warranty.
